Iran To Shut Down Internet Permanently; 'Clean' National Intranet In Pipeline

Source: International Business Times

Millions of Internet users in Iran will be permanently denied access to the World Wide Web and cut off from popular social networking sites and email services, as the government has announced its plans to establish a national Intranet within five months.

In a statement released Thursday, Reza Taghipour, the Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology, announced the setting up of a national Intranet and the effective blockage of services like Google, Gmail, Google Plus, Yahoo and Hotmail, in line with Iran's plan for a &amp;quot;clean Internet.&amp;quot;

The government is set to roll out the first phase of the project in May, following which Google, Hotmail and Yahoo services will be blocked and replaced with government Intranet services like Iran Mail and Iran Search Engine. At this stage, however, the World Wide Web, apart from the aforementioned sites, will still be accessible.

The government has already started the registration procedure to apply for procuring Iran Mail ID, which mandates authentic information pertaining to a person's identity, including national ID, address and full name. Registration will be approved only after verifying it against the government data on the particular applicant.

9. It won't work. A way will be found around the shut-off.

22. This type of thing is working pretty well in Cuba right now.

They have a national "intranet" as well, and regular internet access is basically unheard of for the average person unless they are part of or have connections with the elite. One could be surprised at how easily the Iranian regime might pull this off.

23. I would be very surprised if people do not get around the intranet in Cuba.

28. I've spent quite a bit of time in Cuba, and used the intranet there, and it rarely happens.

You have to be a serious tech wiz to get around the Cuban firewall system, and there aren't many of them in Cuba. Hell almost nobody has a computer at home to begin with, and since you have to have govt. permission just to have intranet access at home, if the cops see a cable coming out of your home they usually cut it off immediately and ask questions later.

25. The middle two don't have guns. At least, not directly.

13. I'd like to suggest this might not work out for them

OK this is wild speculation but, Iran had it's Green Revolution just 3 years ago. It was suppressed but I'm sure it's all just bubbling below the surface. So far they've managed to sit out Arab Spring. But I'm betting the youth of Iran aren't so happy to see their government backing the Syrian civilian slaughter. Shutting down the internet could be just the sort of spark that set off a popular revolt.

"All preparations have been made to launch the bourse; it will open during the Ten-Day Dawn (the ceremonies marking the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran)," Iran's Finance Minister said. However other reports indicate further delays to this already overdue project, with it possibly opening on February 19th. The Minister earlier stated that the Oil Bourse is located on the Persian Gulf island of Kish.

Western media have failed to report on this significant event, which is believed to be the real reason for the hostility and threats of the western globalist elite toward Iran's peaceful nuclear energy program. It is the brain child of Englishman Chris Cook a former director of the International Petroleum Exchange who blew the whistle on market manipulation at the IPE. He has worked for several years in Iran on a Middle Eastern Energy exchange which has been dubbed the "Iran Oil Bourse (IOB)". He said the system would work as a "Peer to Peer" network using the Internet rather than the traditional centralized method to avoid the market manipulation by intermediary traders which affects other oil trading centres.

18. Well, there's one way to start a revolution.

There is simply no way that Iran can control Internet access to people (most phones are using some variant of voice-over-IP now), but the way to prevent it from being controlled or limited at all is to try to ban it outright.

The people will need about six weeks to learn the satellite timings, to chain up an off-the-books wireless network (perhaps masking itself as VOIP phone traffic), and then there's nothing left to do but plan the uprising entirely outside of government influence and control.

If the ban goes into effect before the uprising starts, it gives the uprisers a nice head start on building, testing, and using the very communications system they will use to bring down their parent government, with a built-in level of security the revolutionaries could never guarantee for themselves.

So good on the Iranian government. They are accelerating their own demise.

20. I'm not so sure this is going to be easy to get around.

Sure people can get around it if they are determined to break the law and risk facing the the Iranian vice squad.

Most people would rather not take the risk though. Especially when the government is going to provide them with with a "safe" version of the internet that has most of what they need for day-to-day stuff.